Twin NASA satellites are set to travel to space Tuesday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket poised to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base and help scientists solve a space-weather mystery.

The SpaceX rocket’s liftoff from Space Launch Complex-4 on the South Base is scheduled to occur during a 57-minute window opening at 11:13 a.m. Tuesday. If needed, the team has a backup opportunity Wednesday.

After finishing its tasks, the first-stage booster will return to Vandenberg, landing at a site west of the launch pad. It will be the 16th launch and landing for the first-stage booster assigned to the mission.

Sonic booms may be heard around Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties as the booster returns to Vandenberg, officials said.

The primary cargo aboard the rocket will be NASA’s Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, mission.

The twin craft will explore how Earth’s magnetic shield — the magnetosphere — protects the planet from the supersonic stream of material, dubbed solar wind, generated by the sun.

“Vandenberg plays a very crucial part in how we do our science and how we achieve our goals as an agency,” said Norman Phelps, TRACERS mission manager with the NASA Launch Services Program. While the Launch Services Program is based in Florida, it has a resident office at Vandenberg. 

TRACERS seeks to solve a long-standing mystery about the sun and magnetosphere, according to David Miles, TRACERS principal investigator and astrophysicist at the University of Iowa.

“You have this stuff coming from the sun all the time — the solar wind,” Miles said Monday. “How does it couple into the Earth system? That’s the energy source between things like space weather. It’s also the energy source for the aurora, but why does that happen sometimes and not other times?

“How quickly can that process turn on and turn off? That’s the science we’re chasing.”

He and NASA officials provided a briefing Monday afternoon at the Space and Missile Technology Center.

Specifically, the twin TRACERS will measure how magnetic explosions send solar wind particles into Earth’s atmosphere, affecting space weather that can affect orbiting satellites, technology and astronauts.

Deployment of two of the hitchhiker payloads will begin about 54 minutes after liftoff, with the TRACERS twins separating 90 to 100 minutes after departure, followed by three other small satellites. 

To watch the liftoff and landing in person, the Lompoc Valley has multiple locations offering views of the launch pad and landing site. Those include the peak of Harris Grade Road, west of Lompoc’s city limits and around Vandenberg Village, including near the intersection of Moonglow and Stardust roads. 

A live webcast of the mission is scheduled to begin about 15 minutes before liftoff at spacex.com/launches and on X @SpaceX.